


Quiet Kisses Are So Hardcore

by victoria_p (musesfool)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Rock Band, M/M, Post-Hogwarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 10:14:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17826755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/pseuds/victoria_p
Summary: Sirius knows being in love is totally punk rock.





	Quiet Kisses Are So Hardcore

**Author's Note:**

> Title and summary from [**A Softer World**](http://asofterworld.com/index.php?id=20).

Being onstage is the closest thing Sirius has found to flying in the Muggle world. Oh, Muggles fly—he's watched the planes take off from Heathrow at two in the morning, stoned out of his gourd—but it's not the same thing. It's not the same thing at all.

Here onstage, in the bright heat of the spotlight, with James's guitar howling on his right and Remus's bass pounding on his left, and the steady pulse of Peter's drums a beating heart behind, his own voice rises screaming, lifting him like dragon's wings.

When he'd finally run away (been turned out, whatever) and fetched up on James's parents' doorstep, James had been been in the middle of his guitar lesson. James was the only truly musical one of the group—he'd played piano and flute before learning guitar, and could fill in on drums when Peter was off doing whatever Peter did when he wasn't around. Sirius had been upset for about thirty seconds at learning about this side of James he'd never seen before, but then he'd had the idea. 

"We should be in a band."

"Yeah?" James had replied. Sirius could see him turning the idea over in his mind, and knew the exact moment it landed. "The Marauders?"

"Yeah," said Sirius, and that was that.

Peter was wildly enthusiastic if not very rhythmic, and it turned out that Remus, who'd originally raised a skeptical brow at the idea, was an excellent, if astonishingly angry, songwriter. 

"All that poetry turned out to be good for something after all," Sirius had said, surprised, with a knowing nudge to Remus's too-prominent ribs. It seemed easier than bringing up how angry all the songs were.

They'd played—badly—at every party they'd caught wind of after that. Even if they hadn't been invited. Even if they weren't getting paid. (In those days, they never got paid.)

Sirius had envisioned himself as Lennon, Bowie, Mercury, but their musical skills were more Vicious, Rotten, and Ramone, and that was okay too. He'd been put out that he'd have to shave his head, and just after he'd gotten his hair long enough to fling properly in time with the beat too, but when he brought it up, Remus laughed and said, "Fuck 'em if they think we're not punk enough."

"Three chords and the truth!" he yells every night before they take the stage in some dank dive that smells like piss and cigarettes, throwing an arm around Remus's shoulder and rubbing his nose in the sweaty hair at his temple. On a good day, Remus lets out a hearty "Yeah!" and even on bad ones, he nods and grins in response.

If leaving the wizarding world makes Sirius feel like he's got away with the greatest prank ever, it's done even more for Remus, who no longer worries about being grilled by the Werewolf Registry every time he leaves the flat.

So even if being in a band had given them nothing else, it had given Remus that. But they're popular enough now that they can reimburse Lily's cousin for the petrol he spends driving their equipment around in his grotty old van (their instruments had not held up well to being shrunk and enlarged repeatedly when they tried to travel the wizarding way, and while Sirius didn't care, James did) and still have enough left over to keep them in cigarettes for the week. Pulling pretty girls every night would be payment enough, but James is already hopelessly besotted with Lily, and Remus always goes home alone, regardless of how many girls are waiting by the door for them after a show. And Sirius always goes with him, without ever examining that too closely, leaving the groupies to Peter, who always looks dazed by the amount of trim he's getting. 

All in all, it's pretty satisfying. 

He knows it's not going to last, though. Good things never do. James is already making rumbling noises about quitting, now that he's knocked Lily up and they're planning to get married. Maybe the fabled Potter-Evans wedding will be the Marauders' last hurrah, and then Remus will go off to university the way he's always talked about and Sirius will live like a king for as long as Uncle Alphard's money lasts. As long as he doesn't have to go back to the stultifying prison that is wizard society in Britain, he doesn't care.

That's a lie, of course. He'd been afraid of what would happen after they left Hogwarts, that they'd never be as close as they were then, and he's still afraid of that now, even though Remus lives in his flat and James crashes there on nights he doesn't spend with Lily.

That fear and dissatisfaction drives him on stage, and he howls it out every night (and twice on Thursdays, at nine pm and one am shows), and goes home sweat-soaked and wrung out, feeling and smelling like his old quidditch sweater.

He's got everything he wants and he still wants _more_ ; he's like some unfathomably greedy bottomless pit, soaking up attention onstage and off, when all he really wants is Moony's sly smile at the mike next to him, Moony's arm slung companionably over his shoulders after a show. Moony's mouth, pink-lipped and laughing, pressed against his under the heat of the spotlight, so everyone in the world (or at least in the club) knows that they belong to each other. 

Of course, Remus doesn't even know, so Sirius is left deflated and unfulfilled by his fantasy, and scrambling to cover for his sudden downer of a mood after the show.

"All right there, Padfoot?" Remus asks, holding out a lit cigarette. 

"Yeah," Sirius answers, sucking on the cigarette like it'll give him the answer he needs.

Tonight's no different. The crowd is drunk and raucous. Sirius's voice is in fine fettle, despite a long night of drinking and smoking, and Remus shoots him a feral smile as James plays the opening chords to their newest song.

The crowd roars and Sirius screams and the music is there to lift him out of himself, the only real thing in a world full of bullshit.

It's over too quickly—it always is, because they only have six songs of their own and then they play a few unrecognizable covers—but this time, Sirius isn't going to let the mood drop. He bows theatrically and takes a final drag off his cigarette, then grinds it out beneath his boot.

He grabs Remus and presses their lips together, desperately, hopefully. Remus gasps in surprise and Sirius takes the opportunity to slip him some tongue. He shoves at the guitar between them and Remus wrangles it out of the way without breaking the kiss. Sirius can hear the crowd screaming but he can't tell if it's in encouragement or horror and, either way, he doesn't give a fuck.

Kissing Remus is like flying, like catching the snitch, like every prank they ever pulled simultaneously going right, and he's doing it right there on stage, in front of James and the world and everyone, buoyed up by the roar of the crowd and the way Remus is responding, sweaty, too-thin body pressed tightly against him and his hands tangled in Sirius's hair. Sirius's hands roam over his shoulders, his back, the knobs of his spine, trying to find purchase as the world drops away and there's nothing but the two of them and the heat blazing under his skin at every point of contact between them.

The sound of a bottle shattering nearby jerks Sirius out of their feverish making out. 

"Oi, that's enough of that," James yells, pushing his glasses up his nose and clenching his fists. He looks ready to dive into the crowd and thump heads, though he tends to be useless at it without a wand. 

Sirius shakes his head. "Fuck 'em if they don't think we're punk enough. Being in love is punk rock, too." He uses his free hand to flip the crowd two fingers and has to stifle a giggle when Remus presses a pleased kiss to the side of his jaw.

James subsides, dragging them all off the stage with him.

The manager is yelling about public indecency and how they better not pull that shit again or he won't book them, and Lily is laughing and congratulating Remus, and then they're all stumbling out into the cool drizzle of a Brixton evening, the sky yellow and grey from clouds and streetlights.

"Come on, Moony," he says, "let's go home and make out some more." 

"Yeah," Remus says. "All right."

He gives James a sloppy salute, wraps an arm around Remus, and apparates them back to the flat. Some things, he doesn't need an audience for. 

end


End file.
